Went down yesterday for a cow, never drew the lucky nwa allocation so had to slum it with the other 55 trucks that didn't get into elk heaven. We had a good look around and saw very little fresh sign anywhere but crossing in and out of the nwa. As we were closer to the last truck onto the base then the first we didn't bother trying to hit the road paralleling the nwa first thing in the morning.
We did find one spot where a couple hundred head had traveled into the southern out of bounds a few days ago (possibly during the first week). Late afternoon I spotted a cow laying down in some grass, head down flat like an old whitetail. After watching for a while with the spotter I saw she was alive but thought she must be injured. We put a sneak on her and got to about 240 yards when she stood up. At that point she looked healthy so the sister in law knocked her back down and we were tagged out. She wasn't previously injured but for whatever reason was out hiding by herself.
Compared to the two times I was there in 2015 this year was much better organized, the meetings and way they filtered everyone out of the hall was good for preventing the congestion and road rage I saw before. I didn't appreciate a few MP's going through my truck but them showing they were serious about enforcing their rules and once again filtering guys timing onto the base wasn't a bad thing. It wasn't good for us because we were almost the last guys onto the base but it really wasn't an issue.
Once on the base we saw very few trucks and no unethical behavior. I see far more competition hunting public land. Luckily we did see a truck when I had my front and rear diff sitting on rocks and the tire chains weren't moving me. He probably saved us a few hours of work trying to get out of that predicament.
If a guy had the tag it would be foolish not to go down. There's a good chance to get into the nwa and even outside on the open base there are still elk, they're just not as easy to find as years gone past. If your capable of walking and getting into the nwa it's probably a pretty good hunt. With the snow it's not hard to figure out where they're at and you'll see a ton of antelope and mule deer.
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